"properly practiced, knitting soothes
the
troubled spirit...
and it doesn't
hurt the untroubled spirit either."
~elizabeth zimmerman
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Esther & The Egg
Despite overwhelming advice to get a yarn ball winder with a little hand crank, I went ahead and ordered a Nostepinne. Call me old-fashioned, but I just wanted to have the experience of hand-winding neat little cupcakes of yarn. Don't worry; I'm sure that this will blow over and I'll be begging for a real ball winder by my birthday (September 7, for those who are keeping track). Anyway, here is a picture of Esther, my Nostepinne. Pictured next to her is my first hand-wound center pull yarn...er...egg, made from Koigu KPPPM (the black yarn is just to hold Esther up).  Here's a slightly more close-up picture of Esther.  Esther is from The Silver Goose, and is made from black walnut with hemalyke, sterling silver and a handmade Cloisonne ball on one end. I still haven't mastered the whole flash thing, so it's not a great picture, but you can see some good ones on their site. I actually 'won' Esther through an ebay auction since I wasn't familiar with the Silver Goose shop, but it looks like they have a lot of pretty pieces. Also, it came in 5 days [ed. actually, it was more like 3] from across the country, USPS Standard. Not too shabby. It's a beautiful piece, and was very reasonably priced. Esther is a pretty solid wood. The end with the ball is the 'handle', and I imagine she could deliver a pretty hefty thunk to any wrong-doers. I was carrying her out to my car last night after work (where she was delivered), and couldn't help but notice her similarities to a night-stick. Hmmm. Good to know. I used this tutorial to get the fundamentals down of using a Nostepinne. Fortunately I knew to expect the possibility of a football-shaped ball from another site, so it didn't entirely throw me off as I worked that it was taking on a distinctly egg-shaped figure. One of the online tutorials says that it takes 5-10 minutes to wind a ball. Um, mine took 1 hr. Oh well, it was relaxing. The only difficulty I had was that I still don't know exactly what to do with the hank I'm winding from without a swift. I had it on my out-stretched feet. I'm not sure this is the most effective method. Maybe I'll use a chair next time. At any rate, it was fun to look at something that I'd finished, and it works, even if it's not pefectly proportioned. It's my very own little yarn egg. Yay me! |
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